Today's Topics:
news of the weird
the average human does it 13 times a day
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Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 18:05:22 PST
From: Chuck Shepherd <cshepherd@igc.apc.org>
Message-Id: <9301060205.AA20656@igc.apc.org>
To: subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: news of the weird
by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
* Reuters reported in November that Russian faith
healer Boris Zolotov has become popular for his
traveling seminars in which he induces mass orgasms in
women by mental telepathy. Typically, he begins a
session by shouting, "Who wants an orgasm?" and dozens
of women yell back, "I do." With throbbing-beat music
in the background, he encourages women to come to throw
themselves into a heap in the center of the room while
he chants and implores them to move feverishly. At a
session in Zelenograd, the Reuters reporter wrote that
"[a]bout 30 appear to have had a sexual climax." [Japan
Times-Reuter-Kyodo, 12-1-92]
Frontiers of Science
* A University of Pennsylvania archaeological chemist
and two colleagues, writing in the journal Nature in
November, reported finding the residue of beer in jars
in Iran and Iraq that are more than 5,000 years old.
[Baltimore Sun-AP, 11-5-92]
* The Washington Post reported in October that the
government of India has specially bred 60-lb. snapping
turtles to reduce pollution in the holy Ganges River.
Devout Hindus believe that the river will cause rebirth
and eternal salvation to one's ashes, but some Hindu
families cannot afford enough firewood for a total
cremation and thus burn as much as they can before
throwing the corpse into the river. The turtles eat
the possibly-hundreds of partially-cremated bodies.
[Louisville Courier-Journal-Wash. Post, 11-5-92]
* Recent prices for the Kremlovka hospital in Moscow
(formerly the main facility for members of the
Politburo and the Supreme Soviet): the equivalent of
$2 a day for a room, $100 for a gall bladder operation,
15 cents per tooth for dental fillings. [Times of
London-Globe and Mail, 9-25-92]
* According to a recent study by University of
California at Irvine researchers, violent criminals
have five times as much of the metal manganese in their
hair as do law-abiding citizens. The researchers have
no explanation but seem confident that the metal is a
symptom rather than a cause of the violent behavior.
[Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 7-17-92]
* A speech pathologist at Nova University in Ft.
Lauderdale, Fla., offers classes on the proper way to
yell. She told the Sun-Sentinel newspaper that
research indicates that 37% of women with vocal damage
were at one point high school cheerleaders, and a third
of current cheerleaders have such problems. Among her
teachings: Use husky shouts instead of high-pitched
screeches. [Orlando Sentinel-Ft. Lauderdale Sun-
Sentinel, 10-31-92]
* In October, researchers at Auburn University and
Wayne State University, surveying 49 metropolitan
areas' prevalence of country and western music on
radio, found that the more C&W, the higher the suicide
rate. [Wall Street Journal, 11-4-92]
Not Good at Closing the Deal
* Fort Erie, Ontario, Constable Paul Fletcher told
reporters in December that a man, armed with a club,
tried to force a woman to drive him home with her to
get money for him but that when he waited for her to
unlock the passenger door from inside, she sped away.
[Globe and Mail-CP, 12-2-92]
* The November robbery of an Office Depot store in
Lennox, Calif., just after closing, was aborted when
the robber, after locking the employees in an office,
walked out the back door to tell his accomplices that
the coast was clear to come inside. The door locked
behind him. [Daily Breeze, 11-30-92]
* A man wearing a wig and glue-on moustache and
sideburns tried to rob a Seattle check-cashing store in
November, presenting clerk Kevin McCarthy with a hand-
written note. The note, said McCarthy, "was just a
bunch of gibberish. I didn't even try to read it, it
was just ridiculous." The man declined McCarthy's
request for clearer instructions and left, swearing.
[Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 11-11-92]
* On November 18, a man wearing a sweatshirt with the
hood pulled tightly over his head and a mask covering
all but his eyes pounded on the front door of the
Security Federal Savings Bank in Durham, N. C., scaring
employees inside. After several loud attempts to push
open the door, which is a "pull" door, he fled. Durham
police say precisely the same thing happened at another
bank on October 22. [Durham Herald-Sun, 11-19-92]
* Ronald Melvin Gower, 31, was arrested in Princeton,
Ky., in July, after he tried to rob the First Bank and
Trust Company with a toy gun. One teller refused to
hand over money, and as the robber tried to persuade
her, another employee, who happened to be carrying a
Polaroid camera to take a picture of a car later in the
day, snapped the robber's picture. At that point,
Gower allegedly backed away, said he was just kidding,
and asked for change of a $100. (Gower was wearing a
rolled-up stocking under his baseball cap, to use as a
mask, but had forgotten to pull it down over his face
when he entered the bank.) [Kentucky New Era
(Hopkinsville), 7-15-92]
* Henry County, Ga., jail inmate Mackey Junior Pope,
28, was apprehended in February after an escape
attempt. Using a smuggled-in gun, he got the drop on
four guards, locked them in a cell, and then crept
along a hallway toward the front of the building.
However, Pope had neglected to take the guards' walkie-
talkies, and the front desk guards were waiting for
him. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2-11-92]
The Weirdo-American Community
* In November, the New York Board of Regents overruled
the state health commissioner and declined to revoke
the medical license of dermatologist Stephen Kurzweil,
even though Kurzweil has said he believes he was marked
with a leg scar by aliens operating near the South
Pole. Kurzweil also believes that space aliens gave
technology to Nazis to use against Jews and that aliens
have been answering his office phone. One Board member
said there was nothing to suggest that any of Dr.
Kurzweil's patients were harmed by his "eccentricity."
[New York Post, 11-21-92]
END
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Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 15:19:51 -0500
From: Eric Haines <erich@eye.com>
Message-Id: <9301052019.AA07654@hemlock>
To: subgenius@media-lab.media.mit.edu
Subject: the average human does it 13 times a day
This story appeared in the Dec 27 Guardian Weekly
An Australian gastro-enterologist set the world of science
fuming last week when he urged people to avoid flatulence-
producing turkey and plum pudding at Christmas, to help
save the ozone layer.
Terry Bolin of Sydney's Prince of Wales Hospital said:
"There has been no real measurement of emissions from
humans as a contributor to the ozone problem. But it
probably does, because it's the hydrogen and carbon dioxide
and methane that you produce that have an impact." The
average person "emitted" a litre a day, he said.
But Dr Jeremy Leggett of Greenpeace said the real dangers
of methane "lie not with farting Australians" but with
bacterial digestive processes which have stored millions
of tons of methane in frozen bogs under the tundra.
"As the world warms, these will be released in quantities
that will boost global warming and add to ozone depletion."
Professor Rodney Taylor of the British Digestive Foundation
spoilt it all by pointing out that methane was produced by
a high-fibre diet. Vegetarians were more likely to add to
the methane crisis. "Just to put it into perspective," he
said, the average cow produces 500 litres of methane a
day".
Professor Tom Wigley of the climate research unit at the
University of East Anglia hit back. "Methane doesn't
destroy ozone," he said. "Methane increases the amount of
ozone. And so the more you fart -- if you can get it up
there into the stratosphere -- the better it is for the
ozone layer."
"I did a little calculation on the greenhouse effect of
extra farts over Christmas. If a billion people --
which is about the Christian world -- fart an extra two
litres of methane a day for seven days over Christmas,
that would produce one hundredth of a teragram of
methane." A teragram is a million million grams.
"That's quite a lot of methane. But present emissions
are about 500 teragrams so we are talking about an
increment of only one fifty-thousandth. I worked out
what the temperature effect would be. It would be
about a hundred-thousandth of a degree Celsius. From
a climate point of view, don't worry about farting.
For the ozone layer, fart as much as you possibly can,"
Professor Wigley said.
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End of Subgenius Digest
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